ABSTRACT

Microcredit has become a component of global development. Recently, the climate change and disaster community have proposed that it may be able to facilitate climate change adaptation, but whether this is the case remains under-researched. Addressing this gap, this paper examines the question in relation to microcredit’s ability to support adaptation strategies that effectively address vulnerability to climate shocks in three villages in the Bagerhat and Chattogram districts of coastal Bangladesh. The findings provide qualitative evidence that at-risk people often use microcredit as a response to climate shocks. However, the case study only finds evidence that microcredit supports coping and incremental adaptation. Findings suggest shocks (some climate-related and some not) can result in reduction in food consumption, erosion of assets, depletion of savings, increased debt, and debt default, ‘trapping’ at-risk people in indebtedness through a process of cumulative vulnerability. Lack of outreach of microcredit, erosion of assets, supply barriers, and lack of credit alternatives reduce microcredit’s potential to address the persistent determinants of vulnerability.

摘要

小额信贷已成为全球发展的组成部分。最近，气候变化和灾难社区提出，它可能能够促进气候变化的适应，但是否如此仍在研究中。针对这一差距，本文研究了与小额信贷支持适应策略的能力有关的问题，该策略有效解决了孟加拉国沿海地区Bagerhat和Chattogram地区三个村庄的气候冲击脆弱性。这些发现提供了定性证据，表明高风险人群经常将小额信贷用作应对气候变化的手段。但是，案例研究仅发现小额信贷支持应对和增量适应的证据。调查结果表明，冲击（有些与气候有关，有些与气候无关）可能会导致食品消耗减少，资产侵蚀，储蓄的枯竭，债务的增加和债务违约，通过累积的脆弱性过程将“高风险”的人“困住”在债务中。小额信贷的缺乏，资产的侵蚀，供应壁垒以及信贷替代方案的缺乏降低了小额信贷解决持久性脆弱性决定因素的潜力。